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By Madhu Gurung
Liberalisation works in strange ways: There is no cap on the amount of polluting motorised vehicles that can be added to Delhi's roads. But there is a quota for eco-friendly rickshaws in the city. As a result, thousands of poor rickshaw-pullers are caught in a cycle of extortion, exploitation and poverty
A general sense of apathy prevails at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) civil lines yard in old Delhi. The stench of stale urine assails your senses. Seven men sit hunched under the shade of a tree, their eyes searching out their vehicles, their only means of livelihood.
In the background, behind the endless traffic and half-finished metro line, confiscated rickshaws languish in the merciless sun, jailed behind a waist-high brick wall. In one corner, piled high like twisted misshapen bones, are the skeletons of bulldozed rickshaws crushed beyond use in the MCD’s graveyard of rickshaws.
“For the past five days I have not been able to ply my rickshaw. There is no money for food. I earn just about Rs 100-150, of which I have to pay the maalik Rs 25. The rest we eat. The next day I ply my rickshaw again to earn. A dog has a better life than us rickshawallas,” says Mohammad Murtaza. The others nod in unison. They all say they want to get their confiscated rickshaws released before they are sentenced to the grotesque graveyard. Many rickshaw-pullers get into a spiral of debt in the process of recovering a confiscated vehicle.
Murtaza is just a number in government records, which peg the number of rickshaws plying in Delhi at over 600,000. However, NGOs like Lokayan that work with rickshaw-pullers insist there are only 300,000 rickshaws in Delhi.
Each rickshaw-puller’s income supports a family of six to seven. Coupled with this, there are around 20,000 mechanics who service the rickshaws, and thousands of small-scale industrial units that manufacture rickshaw parts. Roughly 500,000-600,000 people depend on the rickshaws as a mode of regular transport. And this figure does not include the people who regularly use their services, like the children who go to school by rickshaw every day.
In 1998, the Delhi government decided that the upper quota for rickshaw licences would be 99,000. But in actual fact, only 74,000 licences have so far been issued. The government’s deliberate refusal to give out the required number of licences means that, apart from these 74,000, the remaining rickshaws plying Delhi’s roads are illegal. This is the babus’ way of ensuring illegal lucrative incomes for themselves, by way of bribes.
The stick used to beat the rickshawalla with is the standard environmental one, never mind that rickshaws are non-polluting. The government claims they add to crowding in overcrowded areas (partly because they are not permitted to operate in many less crowded areas like the posh parts of New Delhi).
In order to “decongest traffic”, rickshaws are regularly impounded. It’s the non-licensed rickshaws that are impounded. The fine on an impounded rickshaw is Rs 325, plus there is a “storage charge” of Rs 25 for 15 days at the MCD yard. On the 16th day, the rickshaw is crushed beyond use by a bulldozer -- a highly questionable policy that sanctions both open loot and criminal destruction.
“To date, the MCD has destroyed over 60,000 rickshaws, although its records for the last three years show only 23,000 rickshaws destroyed,” says Rajendra Ravi, convenor of Lokayan. “Every year, over 200,000 motorised vehicles join the roads. There is no quota to restrict these vehicles. A man can buy as many cars as he wants and get a licence for each of them. Don’t they congest roads? When a car is impounded, the fee is just Rs 100. For a rickshaw, where earnings are so low, it is Rs 325. Is this fair?”
The irony, Ravi points out, is that while the number of motorised vehicles has increased, so too has the number of rickshaws because there is demand for both in a city on the move. People are happy to take rickshaws for short distances, instead of walking. Rickshaws, says Ravi, act as the “feeder system” for the metro, plying people from homes and offices to metro stations, bus stops, schools and shops.
License Quota Raid Raj
The blatant exploitation of rickshaw-pullers, who are among the poorest in the city, had inspired the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) to produce a hard-hitting documentary, License Quota Raid Raj: A View from Below, in 1996.
“For over a year the documentary gathered dust as it was not aired,” says Madhu Kishwar, activist and editor of Manushi. “It affronted the sensibilities of the bureaucracy with its portrayal of exploitation and bribe-taking that the administration indulged in but did not wish shown publicly. Then Jaipal Reddy became the information and broadcasting minister and it was aired on prime time. The issue snowballed and our office was flooded with rickshawallas who said it was the first time in their lives that they had been heard.” The overwhelming public response resulted in public hearings (jansunwais) and caught the attention of the prime minister’s office (PMO) that sent a letter to then lieutenant governor Vijay Kapur, asking him to draft a policy for rickshawallas and street vendors. “In the history of governance, this was the first time that the PMO had intervened in municipal laws,” says Kishwar. Buoyed by this success, NGOs working for the welfare of rickshaw-pullers moved the Supreme Court. But the days when the courts were ‘pro-poor’ and ‘pro-worker’ are gone. The NGOs were unable to get a satisfactory ruling for these desperately poor workers.
However, there were some cosmetic changes following the PMO’s directions. Delhi was divided into green, yellow and red zones. Rickshaws had free access to the green zone, they could enter the yellow zone with a fee, and were completely prohibited from plying within the red zone.
Then, in September 2001, the traffic police banned rickshaws from plying not only in the red zone but also a large section of the yellow zone. The latest ban is on rickshaws plying in Chandni Chowk. The government is trying to phase out rickshaws from the narrow lanes of Old Delhi and bring in CNG-operated buses. A recent high court ruling is even more stringent as it does not allow rickshaws to ply on arterial roads.
Delhi’s rickshaw-pullers are afraid they may have lost their only means of livelihood, as Delhi becomes a clone of any modern Western city. “Like all government schemes, the recent high court ruling does not take into account how the rickshaw-pullers will sustain themselves. Most of the rickshaw-pullers are displaced poor from the villages who have nowhere to go and no other means to earn a livelihood,” points out Ravi.
As the Delhi government continues building wide roads and flyovers for its growing motorised traffic, the urban planners have done nothing to accommodate cycles and rickshaws by building separate lanes for them. And so the rickshaw-pullers are feeling increasingly marginalised and at risk, as they are forced to peddle alongside fast-moving traffic.
Rickshawallas are migrant poor
Life for a rickshaw-puller is tough: the work is hard, the living conditions worse. Almost all rickshawallas migrate to Delhi in search of employment, fleeing famine, floods or debt. They subsist on very little as they try and save as much as they can to send back to their families in the villages. They cannot afford to rent a room and the Delhi government has done little to provide cheap housing or hostels for these migrants. Further, there isn’t a single rickshaw parking lot where the vehicles can be safely deposited at night. So the rickshaw-puller is forced to sleep precariously in his vehicle, to ensure that it is not stolen. The option is to sleep on the pavement. There are very few shelters for homeless people in the city, and even these charge a fee.
Although no studies exist on the health status of the rickshaw-pullers, Ravi points out that most stop plying their rickshaws by the time they are in their 50s, as the hard work takes its toll on their lungs and heart. Subsisting on meagre food, working in the hot sun and braving all kinds of weather conditions without adequate nourishment or rest ensures that most rickshaw-pullers are malnourished and suffer poor health.
In the 1930s, when hand-pulled rickshaws first became public transportation, they formed part of the informal labour sector. After Independence, the men were replaced by bicycles and rickshaws became more efficient. At that time, the Delhi government issued 500 licences for rickshaws and imposed restrictions on rickshaws plying from one zone to another.
The then Congress leader Subhadra Joshi formed a cooperative society of rickshaw-pullers, but the MCD refused to give out any more licences. Angry rickshaw-pullers launched a protest. Jawaharlal Nehru heard about it and ordered the MCD to issue an additional 150 licences. Although this was done, the restrictions on movement from one zone to another were not lifted. The rickshaw cooperative society broke up some years later.
In 1960 special bylaws were passed for rickshaws, which remained in force up to 1975. Attempts were made to reduce the number of rickshaws by issuing only 600 licences. In 1976, the quota for licences was raised to 20,000 but the numbers continued to multiply. In 1993, the quota went up to 50,000.
Angered by the arbitrary handing out of licences, a cycle rickshaw operators’ union took the MCD to the Supreme Court. The case established that, according to traffic police figures, there were over 450,000 rickshaws plying in Delhi. In December 1998, the licence quota was raised to 99,000. But, to date, only 74,000 licences have been issued.
Although seen as a symbol of backwardness, the rickshaw-puller remains trapped in a vast network of corruption and poverty because of the MCD quota for licences. Most cartel rickshaw owners, who have as many as 50-300 rickshaws, obtain licences under bogus names and pay bribes of Rs 300-600 as ‘protection tax’. Every three years, when licences have to be renewed for a fee of just Rs 25, they have to pay between Rs 150-200 per rickshaw, reinforcing the vast existing illegal extortion network. Regular bribe-givers have signs painted on their rickshaws, which are recognised by the MCD. Individual rickshawallas have no such protection. On the contrary, if they fall ill no one else can legally ply their rickshaws. The cartel rickshaw owners hire out their vehicles to rickshaw-pullers for Rs 25-30 a day.
After working his rickshaw for over 25 years, Mohammad Aslam says he still cannot afford to buy his own rickshaw. A rickshaw costs between Rs 4,200 and Rs 4,500, but then there is the matter of obtaining a licence and the bribes required for it. Every day, Aslam pays Rs 30 as hire charges to his maalik, the rickshaw owner. “I could have bought many rickshaws with the amount I have to pay the maalik, but who will let me run it? My brother bought his own rickshaw but fear of the MCD makes him ply it only at night.” Getting caught means getting trapped in a long chain of bribes.
Most rickshaw-pullers feel the government is completely indifferent to their needs. “The rickshaw bylaws have never been reviewed although they are antiquated. A hundred-and-thirty-six years after rickshaws first began operating in the city, isn’t it time to impartially look at the market demand, as well as the rickshaw-pullers’ wages and the whole issue of sustainable development?” asks Ravi.
Till the early-1970s, the MCD looked after a whole range of transportation. Then the transport department was formed to take independent charge of motorised traffic. Non-motorised traffic remained under the MCD’s jurisdiction. As transportation boomed, huge budget allocations were made to the transport department, leaving none for non-motorised modes of transport.
“The results are evident. Research and development has changed the face of motorised traffic, as new models of cars hit the roads. (However) no money has been spent on trying to enhance the efficiency of rickshaws, to make them more user-friendly and less energy consuming,” Ravi points out. According to him, the rickshaw is the most environment-friendly mode of transport, saving millions of dollars by way of foreign exchange used to buy petrol. It also provides cheap transportation for lakhs of people every day. Since 1980, rickshaws have returned to the streets of China and recently Oxford imported a number of rickshaws from Delhi.
Dr S Gangopadhya, head of traffic and transportation at the Central Road Research Institute, refused to comment on whether the government has any plans to rehabilitate the rickshaw-pullers. However, he agrees that there are few road facilities for cycles and rickshaws anywhere in the country. “Every mode of transport is unique and in a country like India the role of the rickshaw cannot be ignored. It is important to evolve traffic according to native needs, instead of trying to emulate the West,” he says.
Lokayan says the new high court ruling makes it determined to carry out a campaign for the rickshawallas. Says Ravi: “We have launched an Equal Road Rights Campaign. The Constitution gives all its citizens the right to life, right to mobility and right to livelihood. But our roads are not made for equal mobility -- they are only for motorised traffic. Infrastructure is meant for all citizens, as everyone pays indirect taxes. By denying mobility to the rickshawalla you are also denying him his means of earning a living.”
Madhu Kishwar adds: “The rickshaws are not asking for concessions, subsidies or largesse. Just as there are no quotas for cars, let the market decide the number of rickshaws it wants. This should be within the framework of liberalisation. Today, 93% of Indians work in the unorganised sector, of which the rickshawallas are an important part. Banning of livelihood is a question of life and death. It is time the government made liberalisation not a trickle-down but a bottom-up reform. Our policymakers need to plan our cities for all categories of citizens, and this can only happen when we build bridges of concern between the rich and the poor.”
(Madhu Gurung is a Delhi-based researcher and journalist)
InfoChange News & Features, September 2006
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